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Op-Ed by Dean Baker, a US macroeconomist and co-founder of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research: The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the US-European Union "Free Trade" Agreement are both being pushed as major openings to trade that will increase growth and create jobs. Rather, these deals are about securing regulatory gains for major corporate interests. In some cases, such as increased patent and copyright protection, these deals are 180 degrees at odds with free trade. [. . . ] There are also a wide variety of regulatory issues that are being pursued through these agreements in large part because there would be difficulty getting them accepted through the normal political process. For example. . . government mandated internet policing. . . It is also likely that rules that limit the power of governments to restrict fracking could be in the agreements. . . . almost nothing about the negotiating process [has been made] public and . . . none of the proposed text [has been shared] with the relevant committees in Congress. . .yet another case where the government is working for a tiny elite against the interests of the bulk of the population....

Evidence continues to mount that we have seen the peak of activity for the current economic cycle. The implications of such an occurrence are broad and suggests that the Fed's liquidity driven interventions, and zero interest rate policy, may have well seen the end of their effectiveness.

Karl Denninger piece from Market-Ticker.org. Karl:"With a formal "drop dead" date of Monday things are going to heat up a bit over the weekend, I suspect. You might want to think about protection from a market perspective, although I remain convinced that this is not the domino that sets off the mess -- we're playing the "Bear Stearns" game here, and this is the warning flag that despite the claims of all those pumpers in the market all is not well and the excessive leverage problems are starting to leak to the surface once again."